What is Climate Change?
What is climate change?
Climate refers to long-term shifts in global or regional climate patterns. As of 2024, the earth's average surface temperature has risen about 1.1°C (2°F) since the late 19th century, driven primarily by increased levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.
The main causes of climate change are human activities that release greenhouse gases, including:
Burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) for electricity, transportation, and industrial processes.
Deforestation, which reduces CO2 absorption from plants.
Agriculture and livestock farming producing methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
Certain industrial processes and chemicals releasing greenhouse gases.
These greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun's rays, preventing it from radiating back into space. This trapped heat is warming the earth's surface, oceans, and the lower atmosphere over time.
The impacts of climate change in 2024 include rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice, more extreme weather events, shifting ecosystems and wildlife patterns, and increasing climate migration pressures.
"It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred." (IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, 2021)
"Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe." (IPCC, 2021)
"The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere." (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information)
"The last decade was the hottest on record for global average surface temperatures." (NOAA, 2022 Annual Climate Report)
Urgent action is still needed to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit future warming to relatively safe levels through transitioning to clean energy, protecting carbon sinks like forests, and adapting communities to unavoidable climate impacts.
This is a link to a relevant TED TALK
Ted Talk by Kathryn Hayhoe Professor of Atmospheric Science at Texas Tech University. A good place to start getting good information.
The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it | Katharine Hayhoe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BvcToPZC
Saving Us / Kathryn Hayhoe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ClzS49vj9
What makes climate warming and weird weather?
Human activities like burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), deforestation, and certain industrial processes release greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun's rays within the atmosphere, causing global surface temperatures to rise over time. This temperature increase, driven by excessive greenhouse gas emissions, disrupts longstanding weather patterns and climate conditions, leading to consequences such as rising sea levels, melting glaciers, more extreme weather events, and other widespread environmental impacts across the planet.
Ted Talk by Kathryn Hayhoe Professor of Atmospheric Science at Texas Tech University. A good place to start getting good information.
The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it | Katharine Hayhoe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BvcToPZCLI
Saving Us / Kathryn Hayhoe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ClzS49vj9E
Short segments on weirding weather / Globalweirdingseries.com on YouTube.